I jotted down some notes about our initial experiences without cable:
Night 1 (Tuesday of this week): The bottom line? Suck. The cable was officially turned off today, and we can’t figure out how to get our TV to receive regular digital broadcasting. Seems we may need an antenna? Not sure. Ordered one from Amazon that will get here in two-ish days, pending the outcome of the “Snowquester” that is supposed to hit tonight. In the meantime, tried watching Suburgatory on abc.com. Major suck. The show stopped to buffer/load every 15 seconds or less. Gave up after 15 minutes of frustrating effort and only about 65 seconds of actual programming viewed. No TV tonight. This isn’t looking good, but I’m willing to admit it’s too soon to tell. On the plus side, I may find more time to read on my hands…
Night 2: An improvement, by far. Today was a snow day (that was lacking in much actual snow, sadly), and the kids spent a fair amount of time watching kid shows on Netflix through the Wii that is connected to the living room TV (did you know there was a She-Hulk? Like half the girls born in the ‘80’s, her name was Jennifer). In the evening, M. and I could have paid bills and finished our taxes, but instead we drank red wine, ate minty brownies (from scratch! I rock!), and watched mindless sitcoms. Since we are still Roku-less (UPS sissy-ed out on the whole “delivering in mildly wintry weather” situation), we hooked up the laptop to our TV with an HDMI cable and watched a couple of episodes of Modern Family and the Suburgatory episode I couldn’t get through the night before on Hulu Plus. Overall it worked pretty well (no buffering! Ha – the first time I typed that I wrote “buggering.” There was also no buggering, that’s true), but scenes with rapid movement were pretty jerky, especially on the Modern Family episodes. Overall, I consider it a win.
Night 3: The Roku has arrived. It is fairly simple to set up. Soon we are up and running and watching a couple of episodes of Raising Hope via Hulu Plus. There is no issue with any “jerky” scenes at all – an improvement over the night before.
Night 4: Since it’s a Friday, the kids get to watch TV after school. I fire up the Wii and launch Netflix. Finn is in time out (dude has SUCH an attitude lately!), so Lucy chooses first. We watch a 51 minute showing of various “Angelina Ballerina” episodes. She is enthralled, Finn less so. It is followed by a short episode of the Avengers. Both kids are mainly happy. Once they are in bed, Mark and I try hooking up our new antenna to the basement TV, which has just arrived. Based on where we are holding it, we can receive anywhere from 4 to 7 channels. These channels include NBC (spotty), Fox (very spotty), the CW, Qubo, and some other stuff I’ve never hear of like Ion and Ion Life. Cannot receive ABC or CBS. This is not looking good. We give up and decide to try the antenna on the living room TV tomorrow, and watch two episodes of the original Netflix series “House of Cards” instead. It’s pretty good, actually, with decent star power (Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright) (side note, did you know that M. has never seen Forrest Gump? I think that’s a crime). It’s kind of like West Wing without the witty banter.
Day/Night 5: Saturday morning is easy – the kids are fully entertained by the Avengers and whatnot available on Netflix. They also throw lots of fits when the TV gets turned off, which is both normal and super annoying. M. tries the new antenna on the living room TV and finds it gets the same seven channels the basement TV does. Suck. I don’t understand this, since when we first moved to this house and didn’t have cable yet, we got lots of digital TV channels – somehow, and neither one of us can remember how. I think we are doing something wrong. However, he tries the antenna with the TV up in our bedroom, and it gets about 20 channels, including the major networks. At least there is one room in the house where M. can watch some sports. At night we watch the remake of Footloose for free from Amazon Prime down in the basement. Despite my extreme love of and loyalty to the original, I can say that the remake is pretty good. The new Ren could never be as cool as Kevin Bacon, but he’s pretty good. Julianne Hough is just too cute to be Ariel – I don’t buy her “angry rebellion.” But it’s an enjoyable hour and forty minutes. We also spend some time searching the Roku to find more TV shows, and many of them disappointingly seem to be NOT FREE. Duck Dynasty (shut up, it’s entertaining), House Hunters, all of these seem to cost $1.99 an episode through Amazon. I need to explore online more, as this seems ridiculous to me. Why would an episode of House Hunters from 2002 cost me $1.99 when I’m already an Amazon Prime member? It does seem, though, that we could watch any number of Doctor Who episodes for free…
Now you have a little bit of insight into the sick amount of TV we watch. Also, clearly this is a process we are still trying to improve/perfect. Onward, eh?
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Austerity!
M. and I are challenging ourselves to save as much money as we can, starting now. Good goal, right? But you're probably thinking "don't they do that already?" Well, we DO save money, that is true. We both contribute to our work-sponsored retirement accounts (plus I have pension accounts from my old employer and my current one, though your guess is as good as mine as to whether they'll actually pay out when the time comes), we put a little extra in a couple of IRA accounts each month, we contribute to college savings plans for both kids, and we have a set amount of money transferred to a savings account each month. Sounds pretty good, right?
But here's the thing. SOMETIMES, we have to pull money back out of that savings account to pay for things. Yeah, they're usually pretty big expenses, like HVAC systems or hardwood floors or yearly life insurance premiums. But still - it has been tough to really GROW that savings account, and our "liquid" savings really hasn't substantially increased ever since we bought our house back in 2007. And while that's OK for now, it crossed my mind recently that should we ever have a major life change, we're going to have to do better. We could get by for a while if one of us was laid off (says the chick who may be facing a furlough shortly), but things would be very tough after about 6 months. Hopefully we won't need to test that, of course. But we also need more money if we ever want to consider moving to a new house, be it here or somewhere else. Back when we bought our house, it was pretty easy to buy property with a 5% down payment (which is what we did), but obviously things are different now, and loans aren't as easy to come by. If (IF) we can ever sell our current house for anything close to what we owe on it, we will need to offer up 20% down on our next house. That's... a lot of money. Especially around here (or New England, where we would also consider living), and especially considering that we would be looking for an upgrade (i.e., no more townhouse!).
And the OTHER thing is that we really could be saving more, even putting aside the big-but-necessary purchases. We don't have a budget, really. We pay all our bills in full, on time, but we don't really watch our spending. We shop a lot. We eat out a lot. We eat out a lot, AND manage to spend $150-$220 on groceries every week. How is that possible? I have no idea. I don't even have teenagers yet, I still have fairly picky little kid eaters (though my god they can sock away a box of Nutrigrain bars in record time!). How we spend that much money on food is beyond me, but the fact is, we do, and then we spend probably another $100 each weekend on breakfast out, lunch out, coffee out... you get the picture.
So we are putting ourselves on a money diet, and the name of the game is "austerity!". Which is what M. and I mutter or shout to each other to help ourselves resist temptation when we're contemplating an expenditure. Looking for something to do on Saturday night and considering renting a movie through On Demand? Austerity! We watched Kingpin from our DVD collection instead. Thinking about getting a latte as we head in to the grocery store to bolster flagging energy and kid-arguing levels? Austerity! We passed. Even the kids have taken to shouting it randomly, though they don't REALLY know what it means. All they know is that it means we've changed the TV.
Because Austerity Measure #1 is:
1) Get rid of cable.
We've actually been thinking about doing this for some time. I am continually blown away by how expensive our cable/internet bill is - about $150/month (we spend the same amount on our cell phones, by the way, and all we pay for is one Blackberry with a data plan and one regular cell phone without a data plan, and no texting plans - how this adds up to $150, I have no idea - so at some point we'll be putting AT&T on the chopping block, too). We have Verizon Fios, and I can say that a) their internet is great, and b) their cable/On Demand service sucks. The interface is not user friendly, there are big lag times in working the remote, and about 50% of the time we try to watch something on On Demand, we end up having a technical difficulty of one sort or another and it doesn't work. Not a fan. Right now we have a bundle deal that costs us: $68 for cable, $37 for internet, $7 for a standard cable box (in our bedroom, we never use it), $12 for an HD box (in our living room, where the kids watch most of their TV), and $17 for an HD DVR box (in the basement family room, where M. and I watch most of our TV at night), and about $11 in taxes. Our new plan is:
1a) Keep Verizon internet, which (since it's no longer part of a bundle deal) will now cost us $85 plus tax, though we have a two year contract and some other 12-month discount that will lower it to $70 for a significant amount of time.
1b) Hulu Plus account for $8/month, which we can use to watch programming via our Wii system or on our laptops.
1c) Netflix account for $8/month, the one where you just get instant programming and not the DVDs mailed to your house. We can ALSO watch this through the Wii system or on our laptops.
1d) We moved the Wii system up to the living room for easy access to kiddie programming, which means we need something for the downstairs TV - so we have ordered a Roku box for a one-time cost of $70. This will let us watch Netflix and Hulu Plus on the "big TV."
1e) We already have an Amazon Prime membership, which we can apparently also stream through the Wii and Roku.
The total monthly cost will be $86 plus a few dollars of tax, so we'll say $92. Versus the $152 we were paying previously. The Roku box should pay for itself in less than two months.
The tricky thing will be getting used to these new systems. DVRs are SO convenient - everything is recorded in one place. We'll need to figure out which programming we need to watch through each system - kids' cartoons, older seasons of TV shows, and older movies on Netflix, some current shows on Hulu Plus, other current shows on Amazon Prime, and some that we'll just have to suck up and watch live via digital broadcasting (CBS, I'm looking at you!).
Plus, M. has to pretty much give up watching sports. Which TOTALLY stinks for him, and is probably the main reason we've been putting off making this change. And while I am known for being "less than enthusiastic" about sports and sports-viewing, know that this was NOT my idea. It was M.'s - he thinks he will be OK without the Big 10 network and ESPN. I'm not so sure.
Anyway, I'll report back after we've tried this out for a while, and let you know how it's going.
Obviously $50+ in savings on cable a month is not going to get us to our dream house. Other "Austerity!" measures we are taking include:
2) Curtailing eating out/carry out to approximately once a week. There will be times this won't work (for example, we have a couple of trips coming up where we need to eat on the road), but we will do our best (and also limit the times we DO eat out to places that are relatively inexpensive).
3) Limit Target trips to once a month. And go with a list. M. thinks we should become Walmart shoppers, but I don't know that I can go THAT far.
4) Stick to boxed wine and homebrewed beer. This will work for now, though when the weather gets a bit warmer I may need to look in to buying several bottles of a decent-but-cheap "house white" (since boxed white wine apparently hasn't progressed much beyond Almaden and Franzia in quality).
5) Try to keep the grocery bill down to around $125/week. This will be tougher now that we'll be having more meals at home, but I'm going to try my hand at cooking a few things in bulk to help keep costs down. This weekend I used the crockpot to make a big batch of marinara sauce and a HUGE batch of refried beans. I foresee a lot of spaghetti or beans & rice-type meals in our future, but I don't plan to skimp on fresh fruits/vegetables, so they'll be accompanied by some healthy stuff. And I'll still be buying a few organic things like milk, sliced cheese for the kids, and apples (they just look better than the non-organic). We'll see - this may be a moving target.
6) A general "buy less stuff" outlook. Kids are bored/we're bored? Go to the library instead of Barnes and Noble, where we always get suckered into buying new books (and often, Starbucks drinks!). Renew our National Zoo membership and go once a month instead of once every six months (and pack our own lunches!). This should get significantly easier as the weather gets warmer and we can do things like go to all the many nearby playgrounds or our neighborhood pool, which are FREE.
7) Avoid major/moderate house projects, for now. Instead, I'm hoping we can draw up a list of little no-/low-cost projects we can do to keep the house in good condition - touch up paint (needed EVERYWHERE, and we already own some, we just need to DO IT ALREADY), reorganizing/purging storage spaces, recaulking showers, deep cleaning grout, etc. We WILL do some gardening (my favorite part of spring) which will mean buying some flowers, and I would like to try my hand at refinishing one of the bathroom vanities to see how it goes. But nothing BIG, nothing EXPENSIVE (she says, inviting the house gods to kill an appliance or three).
There are a few things we won't be ditching in the name of "Austerity!" M. will still bring his shirts to the dry cleaner. We've tried saving by eliminating the dry cleaner before, and both of us HATE ironing a big ol' pile of shirts. So no. And I will continue to have our cleaning woman clean the house every other week because SANITY. And probably others, I'm sure, but hopefully this will get us closer to comfort, closer to our goals, closer to whatever comes next for us.
How about you? How do you save money? Any good ideas for us?
But here's the thing. SOMETIMES, we have to pull money back out of that savings account to pay for things. Yeah, they're usually pretty big expenses, like HVAC systems or hardwood floors or yearly life insurance premiums. But still - it has been tough to really GROW that savings account, and our "liquid" savings really hasn't substantially increased ever since we bought our house back in 2007. And while that's OK for now, it crossed my mind recently that should we ever have a major life change, we're going to have to do better. We could get by for a while if one of us was laid off (says the chick who may be facing a furlough shortly), but things would be very tough after about 6 months. Hopefully we won't need to test that, of course. But we also need more money if we ever want to consider moving to a new house, be it here or somewhere else. Back when we bought our house, it was pretty easy to buy property with a 5% down payment (which is what we did), but obviously things are different now, and loans aren't as easy to come by. If (IF) we can ever sell our current house for anything close to what we owe on it, we will need to offer up 20% down on our next house. That's... a lot of money. Especially around here (or New England, where we would also consider living), and especially considering that we would be looking for an upgrade (i.e., no more townhouse!).
And the OTHER thing is that we really could be saving more, even putting aside the big-but-necessary purchases. We don't have a budget, really. We pay all our bills in full, on time, but we don't really watch our spending. We shop a lot. We eat out a lot. We eat out a lot, AND manage to spend $150-$220 on groceries every week. How is that possible? I have no idea. I don't even have teenagers yet, I still have fairly picky little kid eaters (though my god they can sock away a box of Nutrigrain bars in record time!). How we spend that much money on food is beyond me, but the fact is, we do, and then we spend probably another $100 each weekend on breakfast out, lunch out, coffee out... you get the picture.
So we are putting ourselves on a money diet, and the name of the game is "austerity!". Which is what M. and I mutter or shout to each other to help ourselves resist temptation when we're contemplating an expenditure. Looking for something to do on Saturday night and considering renting a movie through On Demand? Austerity! We watched Kingpin from our DVD collection instead. Thinking about getting a latte as we head in to the grocery store to bolster flagging energy and kid-arguing levels? Austerity! We passed. Even the kids have taken to shouting it randomly, though they don't REALLY know what it means. All they know is that it means we've changed the TV.
Because Austerity Measure #1 is:
1) Get rid of cable.
We've actually been thinking about doing this for some time. I am continually blown away by how expensive our cable/internet bill is - about $150/month (we spend the same amount on our cell phones, by the way, and all we pay for is one Blackberry with a data plan and one regular cell phone without a data plan, and no texting plans - how this adds up to $150, I have no idea - so at some point we'll be putting AT&T on the chopping block, too). We have Verizon Fios, and I can say that a) their internet is great, and b) their cable/On Demand service sucks. The interface is not user friendly, there are big lag times in working the remote, and about 50% of the time we try to watch something on On Demand, we end up having a technical difficulty of one sort or another and it doesn't work. Not a fan. Right now we have a bundle deal that costs us: $68 for cable, $37 for internet, $7 for a standard cable box (in our bedroom, we never use it), $12 for an HD box (in our living room, where the kids watch most of their TV), and $17 for an HD DVR box (in the basement family room, where M. and I watch most of our TV at night), and about $11 in taxes. Our new plan is:
1a) Keep Verizon internet, which (since it's no longer part of a bundle deal) will now cost us $85 plus tax, though we have a two year contract and some other 12-month discount that will lower it to $70 for a significant amount of time.
1b) Hulu Plus account for $8/month, which we can use to watch programming via our Wii system or on our laptops.
1c) Netflix account for $8/month, the one where you just get instant programming and not the DVDs mailed to your house. We can ALSO watch this through the Wii system or on our laptops.
1d) We moved the Wii system up to the living room for easy access to kiddie programming, which means we need something for the downstairs TV - so we have ordered a Roku box for a one-time cost of $70. This will let us watch Netflix and Hulu Plus on the "big TV."
1e) We already have an Amazon Prime membership, which we can apparently also stream through the Wii and Roku.
The total monthly cost will be $86 plus a few dollars of tax, so we'll say $92. Versus the $152 we were paying previously. The Roku box should pay for itself in less than two months.
The tricky thing will be getting used to these new systems. DVRs are SO convenient - everything is recorded in one place. We'll need to figure out which programming we need to watch through each system - kids' cartoons, older seasons of TV shows, and older movies on Netflix, some current shows on Hulu Plus, other current shows on Amazon Prime, and some that we'll just have to suck up and watch live via digital broadcasting (CBS, I'm looking at you!).
Plus, M. has to pretty much give up watching sports. Which TOTALLY stinks for him, and is probably the main reason we've been putting off making this change. And while I am known for being "less than enthusiastic" about sports and sports-viewing, know that this was NOT my idea. It was M.'s - he thinks he will be OK without the Big 10 network and ESPN. I'm not so sure.
Anyway, I'll report back after we've tried this out for a while, and let you know how it's going.
Obviously $50+ in savings on cable a month is not going to get us to our dream house. Other "Austerity!" measures we are taking include:
2) Curtailing eating out/carry out to approximately once a week. There will be times this won't work (for example, we have a couple of trips coming up where we need to eat on the road), but we will do our best (and also limit the times we DO eat out to places that are relatively inexpensive).
3) Limit Target trips to once a month. And go with a list. M. thinks we should become Walmart shoppers, but I don't know that I can go THAT far.
4) Stick to boxed wine and homebrewed beer. This will work for now, though when the weather gets a bit warmer I may need to look in to buying several bottles of a decent-but-cheap "house white" (since boxed white wine apparently hasn't progressed much beyond Almaden and Franzia in quality).
5) Try to keep the grocery bill down to around $125/week. This will be tougher now that we'll be having more meals at home, but I'm going to try my hand at cooking a few things in bulk to help keep costs down. This weekend I used the crockpot to make a big batch of marinara sauce and a HUGE batch of refried beans. I foresee a lot of spaghetti or beans & rice-type meals in our future, but I don't plan to skimp on fresh fruits/vegetables, so they'll be accompanied by some healthy stuff. And I'll still be buying a few organic things like milk, sliced cheese for the kids, and apples (they just look better than the non-organic). We'll see - this may be a moving target.
6) A general "buy less stuff" outlook. Kids are bored/we're bored? Go to the library instead of Barnes and Noble, where we always get suckered into buying new books (and often, Starbucks drinks!). Renew our National Zoo membership and go once a month instead of once every six months (and pack our own lunches!). This should get significantly easier as the weather gets warmer and we can do things like go to all the many nearby playgrounds or our neighborhood pool, which are FREE.
7) Avoid major/moderate house projects, for now. Instead, I'm hoping we can draw up a list of little no-/low-cost projects we can do to keep the house in good condition - touch up paint (needed EVERYWHERE, and we already own some, we just need to DO IT ALREADY), reorganizing/purging storage spaces, recaulking showers, deep cleaning grout, etc. We WILL do some gardening (my favorite part of spring) which will mean buying some flowers, and I would like to try my hand at refinishing one of the bathroom vanities to see how it goes. But nothing BIG, nothing EXPENSIVE (she says, inviting the house gods to kill an appliance or three).
There are a few things we won't be ditching in the name of "Austerity!" M. will still bring his shirts to the dry cleaner. We've tried saving by eliminating the dry cleaner before, and both of us HATE ironing a big ol' pile of shirts. So no. And I will continue to have our cleaning woman clean the house every other week because SANITY. And probably others, I'm sure, but hopefully this will get us closer to comfort, closer to our goals, closer to whatever comes next for us.
How about you? How do you save money? Any good ideas for us?
Friday, August 19, 2011
It Appears That I Am, Actually, Full of Woe
Oh, I had such PLANS for this fall. Strip out stained carpeting in the living room and dining room. Install hardwood floors. Clean out and dismantle the office. Move all of kids' crap from the living room and dining room down to the office. Buy new dining room furniture - a table, chairs, a BUFFET. For the wedding china that has been living up in New England rent-free in my parents' house for the last 8 years. Nothing terribly extravagant, but a little nicer than the rickety four-person IKEA set we have now. Make curtains (OK, have my mom make curtains). Clean out my oh-so-crowded built-ins and paint the back wall of them some kind of fun color to pick up on the curtains. RECLAIM SPACE FOR GROWN-UPS.
And I also wanted to attempt some minor-ish bathroom remodeling, if replacing ugly wall light fixtures, cabinets, and vanities as well as some demolition of ugly wall tiles can be called minor-ish.
Earlier this week we were contacted about setting up our yearly check-up on the house's HVAC system. An appointment was set for today, a mere 24 hours before the contractor was due to arrive to give us an estimate on the hardwood floors. And... perhaps you can see where I am headed with this?
The whole thing needs to be replaced.
Furnace, air conditioner, coil-thingy, etc. Everythihng.
Well, that's what they're saying, anyway. I say... define "need"? Everything SEEMS to be working perfectly fine, for now. Is this a "need" like, the whole family will burn in a large fire ball while we sleep? Expire from sweat and crabbiness because the A/C is moments away from crashing? Or is this a "you'll need to do this eventually, might as well do it now" need?
We are getting a second opinion tomorrow morning. But if it matches the first - and I'm guessing, based solely on the fact that the HVAC system is original to the house and 20 years old, that it will - it looks like I'll be foregoing my beautiful hardwood floors. The ones that have been sustaining me in thought at each cat puke and smooshed kid food stain I've scrubbed with Woolite over the last several months.
Oh I hate cat puke.
And my kids' totally inability to understand the purpose of bowls and plates. Even when they actually use them (I give them one EVERY TIME, and yet they'd prefer to keep the food in their sweaty little hands), they somehow manage to overturn it and sprinkle any crumbs that have actually managed to be appropriately captured all. over. the. fucking. carpet.
Hardwood floors + things to make the office playroom friendly + new dining room furniture + bathroom stuff + new HVAC system + windows (oops, did I forget to mention the windows? Yup, we're replacing a few of them, because they are also original to the house and totally, disgustingly drafty and inefficient, and that's already in motion and also the opposite of cheap) - well anyway, we are not exactly sitting on a heap of money here. Something has to give.
It will have to be the floors.
May not get to the new furniture or bathroom projects either, but I'm hanging on to hope that some of it will be possible.
And the kids? Are still getting kicked down to the office. New dining room furniture or not. Those creatures take over everything. It stops now. Or whenever I can motivate myself to start cleaning out closets and bins.
And I also wanted to attempt some minor-ish bathroom remodeling, if replacing ugly wall light fixtures, cabinets, and vanities as well as some demolition of ugly wall tiles can be called minor-ish.
Earlier this week we were contacted about setting up our yearly check-up on the house's HVAC system. An appointment was set for today, a mere 24 hours before the contractor was due to arrive to give us an estimate on the hardwood floors. And... perhaps you can see where I am headed with this?
The whole thing needs to be replaced.
Furnace, air conditioner, coil-thingy, etc. Everythihng.
Well, that's what they're saying, anyway. I say... define "need"? Everything SEEMS to be working perfectly fine, for now. Is this a "need" like, the whole family will burn in a large fire ball while we sleep? Expire from sweat and crabbiness because the A/C is moments away from crashing? Or is this a "you'll need to do this eventually, might as well do it now" need?
We are getting a second opinion tomorrow morning. But if it matches the first - and I'm guessing, based solely on the fact that the HVAC system is original to the house and 20 years old, that it will - it looks like I'll be foregoing my beautiful hardwood floors. The ones that have been sustaining me in thought at each cat puke and smooshed kid food stain I've scrubbed with Woolite over the last several months.
Oh I hate cat puke.
And my kids' totally inability to understand the purpose of bowls and plates. Even when they actually use them (I give them one EVERY TIME, and yet they'd prefer to keep the food in their sweaty little hands), they somehow manage to overturn it and sprinkle any crumbs that have actually managed to be appropriately captured all. over. the. fucking. carpet.
Hardwood floors + things to make the office playroom friendly + new dining room furniture + bathroom stuff + new HVAC system + windows (oops, did I forget to mention the windows? Yup, we're replacing a few of them, because they are also original to the house and totally, disgustingly drafty and inefficient, and that's already in motion and also the opposite of cheap) - well anyway, we are not exactly sitting on a heap of money here. Something has to give.
It will have to be the floors.
May not get to the new furniture or bathroom projects either, but I'm hanging on to hope that some of it will be possible.
And the kids? Are still getting kicked down to the office. New dining room furniture or not. Those creatures take over everything. It stops now. Or whenever I can motivate myself to start cleaning out closets and bins.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Filling the Silence
Lucy's napping is still a bit erratic/non-existent, hence my absence. It's amazing how one little baby can suck up so much of your time! Lots to say, but no time to actually sit down and write a fully developed post on each idea. So, just to put something out there for the sake of updating (as I have been told by my grandmother that my blog stinks because I don't post enough), a few bullets:
- The last several days involved family, family and more family. Stacey and Cameron arrived on Friday. My brother Andrew, in the area for work, stopped by on Saturday afternoon for a bit. Kristin flew in Saturday night, Stacey and Cameron left Sunday morning, and I had Kristin and her BlackBerry for company until Tuesday afternoon (seriously, the girl works too much!). I must admit that once everyone was gone, the house seemed pretty quiet and lonely. I'm sure the rainy weather didn't help. I took some pictures, but better ones can be seen at Stacey's blog here. Her post is missing pics of Finn, though, so I will try to put up some recent ones soon.
- Stacey brought me the complete three seasons of Veronica Mars on DVD. I'm only 4 episodes in, and I'm already amazed that I somehow managed to miss this one when it was on the air. Fantastic show (and theme song)! I may have to re-watch with M. so that he can see it, too. Thanks to Stacey for filling some of my maternity leave TV boredom.
- I bought the Miracle Blanket because Lucy has been busting out of my swaddling jobs at night, and I think it's keeping her from sleeping longer stretches. The jury is still out on this one. Lucy seems to absolutely hate it - she fights against it constantly. But I did manage to get her to sleep the first night in it, and she slept one of her longest stretches yet. She will not nap in it (then again, she often just will not nap), and last night wasn't quite as successful - we couldn't get her to fall asleep until almost 11 pm (as opposed to her more typical 7:30/8:00-ish), and then she woke up again at 1:45. It may have been a $30 waste of money.
- M. is leaving for another work trip this coming Monday, and I've been slowly getting more and more anxious about it. Thankfully, we seem to have Lucy's reflux under control, so hopefully I won't have hours of crying from her while I'm on my own the way I did last time. But both kids have been going down for bed at around the same time, and I have no idea how to begin to come up with a plan to handle this by myself. Lucy often requires about an hour to get her down fully (change her, feed her, hold her upright a bit so she doesn't spit up all over the place, swaddle her, get her to fall asleep). Finn is high maintenance, too - he drags out story-time and bedtime singing to at least half an hour, and then he tends to have at least one (often more) episode of calling loudly for one of us to come rectify some trumped up problem or just cuddle with him before he'll fall asleep. And since his room is right next to Lucy's, we always give in and go up to him so that he won't wake his sister up. M. and I are usually both tied up with whatever kid we're in charge of each night for at least an hour. So my big problem is, which kid do I put down first, and what do I do with the other one in the meantime??? My head hurts just thinking about it.
- We tried switching Lucy to a generic version of her formula, because it's $11 cheaper per can. That could add up to crazy savings, right, since we go through over a can a week? Well, Lucy apparently has expensive tastes, because halfway through the switch she developed constipation and fussiness. So, we are back to the expensive name brand formula, and general brokeness :-).
- Speaking of brokeness, we don't actually know if we are, because M. and I are terrible at keeping a budget. With all the new expenses that come with adding kid #2 to the family (daycare, diapers, formula, reflux meds), we have no idea if what is coming in, income-wise, is greater than what is going out. So, we are going to take a stab (yet again) at keeping track of expenses/keeping a budget. Last time we tried this we used an Excel spreadsheet, and the downfall was that it was just too time consuming and detailed to maintain. I'm looking for something simpler this time, and I'd like to avoid software we have to buy (see above re: we may be broke). I'm planning on looking in to www.mint.com - anyone have experience with this site, or other recommendations?
That's enough of my jumbled thoughts for now!
- The last several days involved family, family and more family. Stacey and Cameron arrived on Friday. My brother Andrew, in the area for work, stopped by on Saturday afternoon for a bit. Kristin flew in Saturday night, Stacey and Cameron left Sunday morning, and I had Kristin and her BlackBerry for company until Tuesday afternoon (seriously, the girl works too much!). I must admit that once everyone was gone, the house seemed pretty quiet and lonely. I'm sure the rainy weather didn't help. I took some pictures, but better ones can be seen at Stacey's blog here. Her post is missing pics of Finn, though, so I will try to put up some recent ones soon.
- Stacey brought me the complete three seasons of Veronica Mars on DVD. I'm only 4 episodes in, and I'm already amazed that I somehow managed to miss this one when it was on the air. Fantastic show (and theme song)! I may have to re-watch with M. so that he can see it, too. Thanks to Stacey for filling some of my maternity leave TV boredom.
- I bought the Miracle Blanket because Lucy has been busting out of my swaddling jobs at night, and I think it's keeping her from sleeping longer stretches. The jury is still out on this one. Lucy seems to absolutely hate it - she fights against it constantly. But I did manage to get her to sleep the first night in it, and she slept one of her longest stretches yet. She will not nap in it (then again, she often just will not nap), and last night wasn't quite as successful - we couldn't get her to fall asleep until almost 11 pm (as opposed to her more typical 7:30/8:00-ish), and then she woke up again at 1:45. It may have been a $30 waste of money.
- M. is leaving for another work trip this coming Monday, and I've been slowly getting more and more anxious about it. Thankfully, we seem to have Lucy's reflux under control, so hopefully I won't have hours of crying from her while I'm on my own the way I did last time. But both kids have been going down for bed at around the same time, and I have no idea how to begin to come up with a plan to handle this by myself. Lucy often requires about an hour to get her down fully (change her, feed her, hold her upright a bit so she doesn't spit up all over the place, swaddle her, get her to fall asleep). Finn is high maintenance, too - he drags out story-time and bedtime singing to at least half an hour, and then he tends to have at least one (often more) episode of calling loudly for one of us to come rectify some trumped up problem or just cuddle with him before he'll fall asleep. And since his room is right next to Lucy's, we always give in and go up to him so that he won't wake his sister up. M. and I are usually both tied up with whatever kid we're in charge of each night for at least an hour. So my big problem is, which kid do I put down first, and what do I do with the other one in the meantime??? My head hurts just thinking about it.
- We tried switching Lucy to a generic version of her formula, because it's $11 cheaper per can. That could add up to crazy savings, right, since we go through over a can a week? Well, Lucy apparently has expensive tastes, because halfway through the switch she developed constipation and fussiness. So, we are back to the expensive name brand formula, and general brokeness :-).
- Speaking of brokeness, we don't actually know if we are, because M. and I are terrible at keeping a budget. With all the new expenses that come with adding kid #2 to the family (daycare, diapers, formula, reflux meds), we have no idea if what is coming in, income-wise, is greater than what is going out. So, we are going to take a stab (yet again) at keeping track of expenses/keeping a budget. Last time we tried this we used an Excel spreadsheet, and the downfall was that it was just too time consuming and detailed to maintain. I'm looking for something simpler this time, and I'd like to avoid software we have to buy (see above re: we may be broke). I'm planning on looking in to www.mint.com - anyone have experience with this site, or other recommendations?
That's enough of my jumbled thoughts for now!
Monday, July 14, 2008
Adventures in Babysitting
Before and during my pregnancy, I had many grand ideas about parenting and the role that a child would play in our lives. In particular, while I imagined an overwhelming love for my child, I vowed that M. and I would still make time to be spouses instead of just "parents." We would make time for a date night at least once a month, and we would communicate about more than just poopy diapers and speculation on whether any new teeth are popping through.
While we have managed to have the occasional conversation about non-parent subjects like the upcoming election or how work is going, we have not been so successful on the hoped-for monthly "date night." What I didn't fully comprehend was how difficult and nerve-wracking it is to find a reliable, fun and trustworthy babysitter. I mean, I babysat all the time when I was in high school - my friends and I seemed to have no problem getting people to entrust the lives of their children to us. But it just doesn't seem as simple to find a babysitter these days. Having good grades and a younger brother (my glowing qualifications back in the day) doesn't cut it anymore. You need a resume, references, CPR certifications, early childhood classes... And you pay through the nose for these things. The going rate for a babysitter in our Maryland county is apparently $15/hour. Yikes! I was all "I remember being psyched to make $5/hr for watching 3 kids," but my mom had me beat. Apparently she used to charge 25 cents an hour. Talk about slave wages! But parents these days "want the best for their children," and clearly "the best" = "Bill Gates-like wages."
Given the complexity of finding a babysitter, where does one even begin? An obvious place to start would be family, because while every family has the odd crazy or two, you can usually trust family. They already love your child, they just have to be shown how to handle nap time and where the clean diapers are kept. Unfortunately, M. and I have no family in the area, so that's out. Another place to look is through co-worker recommendations, but most of our co-workers don't have kids, and our lengthy commutes mean those who do have kids use babysitters that live too far away from our house.
After nearly 21-months of parenthood, we are reaching the desperation point. Determined to find someone, I signed us up at Sittercity.com. Not cheap ($100 for a year-long membership), but at this point I'm willing to make a few sacrifices. We arranged to meet a young college-age woman at our house this past Saturday. Her cover letter expounded on the evils of tv-watching, the childhood education classes she has taken, and her several years of experience. She seemed if anything overenthusiastic, but this can be a good quality when trying to entertain a 1-year old. We asked her to come over for about 3 hours. The first hour would be spent watching Finn while we were in the house, and for the final 2 hours M. and I would go to Lowe's for a shopping extravaganza to kick-off our planned and increasingly imminent basement remodel.
Friday arrives, and somehow the babysitter has still not managed to e-mail us her resume and references though she has contacted us several times. M. and I start to panic a little. How can we possibly leave our precious only child with a stranger without checking her references first? A flurry of e-mails follow. M. gets a bit snippy and demands her references ASAP. He actually used the acronym, which made me cringe. It irritates me that M. is treating this as a customer/supplier relationship. He doesn't seem to understand the need to make a trusted babysitter feel like part of the family rather than a lowly employee. But trustworthiness not yet verified, I did understand where his sentiment was coming from.
We finally receive some references (though no resume), and decide to move forward with the babysitting date. However, 10 minutes after the babysitter was supposed to show Saturday morning, something makes me check my e-mail. There it is, a message sent at 1:30 am the previous night. The babysitter has a "stomach bug." I choose to believe her, though I have suspicions that she chickened out because she was afraid she'd ticked us off. The bottom line, however, is that she will not be showing up. M. and I decide it is fate. Maybe we're just not ready for the corporate approach to finding a babysitter. This is not the kind of thing that can be handled adequately over e-mail and the internet. I don't want to look at resumes and training certificates. I want to do it the way my mom did it - word of mouth from a friend, someone who's already tested out the babysitter and determined reliability.
Alas, we are now stuck with a membership to Sittercity.com, not sure yet whether we will attempt the online match-making again. We have still purchased absolutely nothing for the bathroom and office that will be constructed in our basement any week now. And worst of all, we are still babysitter-less. The desperation grows...
While we have managed to have the occasional conversation about non-parent subjects like the upcoming election or how work is going, we have not been so successful on the hoped-for monthly "date night." What I didn't fully comprehend was how difficult and nerve-wracking it is to find a reliable, fun and trustworthy babysitter. I mean, I babysat all the time when I was in high school - my friends and I seemed to have no problem getting people to entrust the lives of their children to us. But it just doesn't seem as simple to find a babysitter these days. Having good grades and a younger brother (my glowing qualifications back in the day) doesn't cut it anymore. You need a resume, references, CPR certifications, early childhood classes... And you pay through the nose for these things. The going rate for a babysitter in our Maryland county is apparently $15/hour. Yikes! I was all "I remember being psyched to make $5/hr for watching 3 kids," but my mom had me beat. Apparently she used to charge 25 cents an hour. Talk about slave wages! But parents these days "want the best for their children," and clearly "the best" = "Bill Gates-like wages."
Given the complexity of finding a babysitter, where does one even begin? An obvious place to start would be family, because while every family has the odd crazy or two, you can usually trust family. They already love your child, they just have to be shown how to handle nap time and where the clean diapers are kept. Unfortunately, M. and I have no family in the area, so that's out. Another place to look is through co-worker recommendations, but most of our co-workers don't have kids, and our lengthy commutes mean those who do have kids use babysitters that live too far away from our house.
After nearly 21-months of parenthood, we are reaching the desperation point. Determined to find someone, I signed us up at Sittercity.com. Not cheap ($100 for a year-long membership), but at this point I'm willing to make a few sacrifices. We arranged to meet a young college-age woman at our house this past Saturday. Her cover letter expounded on the evils of tv-watching, the childhood education classes she has taken, and her several years of experience. She seemed if anything overenthusiastic, but this can be a good quality when trying to entertain a 1-year old. We asked her to come over for about 3 hours. The first hour would be spent watching Finn while we were in the house, and for the final 2 hours M. and I would go to Lowe's for a shopping extravaganza to kick-off our planned and increasingly imminent basement remodel.
Friday arrives, and somehow the babysitter has still not managed to e-mail us her resume and references though she has contacted us several times. M. and I start to panic a little. How can we possibly leave our precious only child with a stranger without checking her references first? A flurry of e-mails follow. M. gets a bit snippy and demands her references ASAP. He actually used the acronym, which made me cringe. It irritates me that M. is treating this as a customer/supplier relationship. He doesn't seem to understand the need to make a trusted babysitter feel like part of the family rather than a lowly employee. But trustworthiness not yet verified, I did understand where his sentiment was coming from.
We finally receive some references (though no resume), and decide to move forward with the babysitting date. However, 10 minutes after the babysitter was supposed to show Saturday morning, something makes me check my e-mail. There it is, a message sent at 1:30 am the previous night. The babysitter has a "stomach bug." I choose to believe her, though I have suspicions that she chickened out because she was afraid she'd ticked us off. The bottom line, however, is that she will not be showing up. M. and I decide it is fate. Maybe we're just not ready for the corporate approach to finding a babysitter. This is not the kind of thing that can be handled adequately over e-mail and the internet. I don't want to look at resumes and training certificates. I want to do it the way my mom did it - word of mouth from a friend, someone who's already tested out the babysitter and determined reliability.
Alas, we are now stuck with a membership to Sittercity.com, not sure yet whether we will attempt the online match-making again. We have still purchased absolutely nothing for the bathroom and office that will be constructed in our basement any week now. And worst of all, we are still babysitter-less. The desperation grows...
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